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Tuesday, 11 July 2017

Review: Black Line – 'Treason, Sedition, And Subversive Activities'

The coming together of two respected musical artists to
create something brand new is often a joyous thing. Though these kind
of projects are often loaded with pre-conceived notions rooted in
their respective back catalogues, the end results can sometimes be
much better than expected. Black Line is such a project. The
legendary Douglas J. McCarthy (Nitzer Ebb) and musician / producer /
engineer Cyrusrex, the collaboration had its roots in their previous
project DJM|REX. But it became apparent quickly that their
continually evolving and open studio/live line-up meant this was
becoming an entirely different beast. Thus Black Line was born.

The
result is a brilliant modern merging of one of electronic music's
most recognisable voices, and cutting edge electronic music that
melds glitchy rhythms, synthpop leads and sheer technical
experimentation to create an engaging, high-spec and genuinely
engaging album.

Songs such as 'Sedition', 'Keep Digging', 'No
Crime', 'Shut It Down', 'Can't Breathe', 'Layers', and 'Changed' give
the album a solid back bone of relentlessly catchy dance-friendly
numbers that frame McCarthy's passionate vocal style with fresh
sounds. But there is a deep experimental side to the album with
tracks such as 'No Crime Prelude', 'Layers Interlude', 'First
Moment', and 'Final Moment' showing that there is a lot more going on
here than the intelligent yet dance friendly surface. The result is
something that mixes the dark experimental edge of How To Destroy
Angels with the sublime elegance of Noir.

The production is
second to none. It may be a self-released album at this point in time
but you could easily imagine a label like Mute or Raster-Noton
unveiling this with great fanfare as it is. It's cutting edge, modern
electronic music and is presented and produced as such.

This
is a brilliant debut that promises great things moving forward the
collectivised nature of the project can only yield unexpected twists
and turns as they move through future releases. But in the present
'Treason, Sedition, And Subversive Activities' is a fantastically
strong starting point.